Sander Duivestein
6 HN mentions · mentioned in 6 months, 2018–2023
0:45 · 853K views · Jul 6, 2011
A one-minute clip of Steve Ballmer laughing at the original iPhone and dismissing its price and appeal.
HN uses it as a joke or cautionary reference when a company or analyst confidently dismisses a product that later succeeds.
6 comments from Hacker News
Yeah, while Google immediately scrapped their blackberry like phone project to quickly accelerate an iPhone-ish design for the first android phone, Ballmer made MSFT's probably largest strategic mistake: this video I don't buy the 'things were in motion' while he was there, I think if they were it was in spite of his direction, not because of it.
> Is there another choice? Not yet, I guess. But the $35K Model 3 should be delivered mid 2019 and the first used sales should be available soon after. I doubt Tesla will decrease its prices (they're slowly securing the industry's profits, à la Apple). I'd expect most people to spend more on EV than did on ICE. I wonder if this legitimate question (when people wonder how much to spend on an EV vs cheap ICE) will be later compared to the famous 2007 Ballmer moment: this video :)
Major congrats to them and to the late Jobs. I'd be in the Ballmer category... this video Making telcos "subsidize" it, must be right there with the "pay just the minimum on your credit card" business wise. Brilliant.
To everyone complaining about the price, let's add Steve Ballmer to the studio, he will give some weight to your words: this video
Among many things: “500$? Fully subsidized? With the plan? That is the most expensive phone in the world” [0] [0]: this video